Good morning. It’s Friday the 13th of January and we’re wishing our readers a very happy (and spooky) TGIF. Let’s get you up to speed on the five things headlining tech news today in australia.
1. Twitter employees marched out of their office in Singapore
Elon Musk’s brilliant ideas have resulted in embarrassment yet again. This time, the impact fell on Twitter employees in the company’s Singapore offices, who were reportedly unceremoniously escorted out of the building by landlords because the company didn’t pay the rent on time. According to Bloomberg, Twitter employees were told to leave the company’s office at the CapitaGreen building in Singapore, which had served as its Asia-Pacific headquarters since 2015. The Platformer newsletter reported that Twitter workers were walked out by the building’s landlords because the company had not paid rent, a practice Musk has also seemingly been employing in leased offices in San Francisco and Seattle. Insider reported that Musk paid the overdue on Thursday and that employees were told to return to the office.
I’m told Twitter employees were just walked out of its Singapore office — its Asia-Pacific headquarters — over nonpayment of rent. Landlords walked employees out of the building
— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) January 11, 2023
2. Twitter denies that leaked data from 200 million accounts came from its systems
Still on Twitter and the social media platform has claimed that a treasure trove of leaked user data, containing email addresses linked to about 235 million Twitter accounts, did not come from its systems. The compilation of user information ended up on a dark web marketplace, for sale for about $3 million, earlier this month, according to multiple reports. Though email addresses and corresponding Twitter handles might not seem like sensitive info, the leak prompted concerns that anonymous social media accounts could be tied to real-world identities and that the information would make hacking into accounts far easier.
3. Wizards of the Coast cancels OGL announcement after online ire
Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast has apparently cancelled an announcement about their updated Open Gaming Licence (ODL) for a second time this week. Inside sources at Wizards of the Coast told Gizmodo that the company is scrambling to formulate a response to the backlash against the new OGL that has occurred over the past week, following Gizmodo’s story about a leaked draft of the document. According to Gizmodo sources, the new OGL, now known as OGL 2.0, was supposed to go live on Thursday afternoon, along with a detailed FAQ explaining changes and addressing fan concerns.
Seems that @DnDBeyond‘s Subscription Management page is down as a movement grows to cancel subscriptions to protest reported OGL changes. This comes up when you try to use the Subscription Management page. pic.twitter.com/HOlFvvt8zk
— Christian Hoffer (@CHofferCBus) January 12, 2023
4. ExxonMobil’s 1970’s climate projections were scarily accurate
ExxonMobil knew even more about how damaging climate change is than we first thought, a study out this week shows. The company had its own scientists working on creating climate models and projections. And until this week, no one had actually taken the models out for a test drive to see how they performed. As a paper published on Thursday in the journal Science shows, it turns out they performed scarily well. After the Exxon documents became public and Supran and others began publishing peer-reviewed articles around their content, other scientists and users on Twitter began overlaying graphs included in the archives with actual warming projections, noting how accurate the Exxon predictions appeared to be.
5. Mercedes may abandon the ‘EQ’ electric vehicle range
Mercedes-Benz’ ‘EQ’ range may be done for. According to a report from The Verge, the ‘EQS’ and the ‘EQE’, among other cars within the range, may not be long for this world, as Mercedes repositions electrification across its entire brand. The EQ range hasn’t been on the market that long, since 2021, and a spokesperson for Mercedes told The Verge that “with the aim of becoming fully electric from our parent brand Mercedes-Benz by the end of the decade, we will adapt the positioning of the vehicles and thus also the use of the brand in a contemporary way, but it is still too early for details.”
BONUS ITEM: We love you Bella Ramsey.
The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey has revealed they have a “fluid” relationship with gender and pronouns:https://t.co/6EMqtNqkY6
— Gayming Magazine (@gaymingmag) January 12, 2023
Have a lovely day and a great weekend.